The Secret City

by Sir Hugh Walpole

  VI

  I must speak, for a moment, of myself. Throughout the autumn and winterof 1914 and the spring and summer of 1915 I was with the Russian RedCross on the Polish and Galician fronts. During the summer and earlyautumn of 1915 I shared with the Ninth Army the retreat through Galicia.Never very strong physically, owing to a lameness of the left hip fromwhich I have suffered from birth, the difficulties of the retreat andthe loss of my two greatest friends gave opportunities to my arch-enemySciatica to do what he wished with me, and in October 1915 I was forcedto leave the Front and return to Petrograd. I was an invalid throughoutthe whole of that winter, and only gradually during the spring of 1916was able to pull myself back to an old shadow of my former vigour andenergy. I saw that I would never be good for the Front again, but Iminded that the less now in that the events of the summer of 1915 hadleft me without heart or desire, the merest spectator of life, passiveand, I cynically believed, indifferent. I was nothing to any one, norwas any one anything to me. The desire of my heart had slipped like alaughing ghost away from my ken--men of my slow warmth and cautioussuspicion do not easily admit a new guest....

  Moreover during this spring of 1916 Petrograd, against my knowledge,wove webs about my feet. I had never shared the common belief thatMoscow was the only town in Russia. I had always known that Petrogradhad its own grace and beauty, but it was not until, sore and sick atheart, lonely and bitter against fate, haunted always by the face andlaughter of one whom I would never see again, I wandered about thecanals and quays and deserted byways of the city that I began tounderstand its spirit. I took, to the derision of my few friends, twotumbledown rooms on Pilot's Island, at the far end of EkateringofskyProspect. Here amongst tangled grass, old, deserted boats, stranded,ruined cottages and abraided piers, I hung above the sea. Not indeed thesea of my Glebeshire memories; this was a sluggish, tideless sea, but inthe winter one sheet of ice, stretching far beyond the barrier of theeye, catching into its frosted heart every colour of the sky and air,the lights of the town, the lamps of imprisoned barges, the moon, thesun, the stars, the purple sunsets, and the strange, mysterious lightsthat flash from the shadows of the hovering snow-clouds. My rooms weredesolate perhaps, bare boards with holes, an old cracked mirror, astove, a bookcase, a photograph, and a sketch of Rafiel Cove. My friendslooked and shivered; I, staring from my window on to the entrance intothe waterways of the city, felt that any magic might come out of thatstrange desolation and silence. A shadow like the sweeping of the wingof a great bird would hover above the ice; a bell from some boat wouldring, then the church bells of the city would answer it; the shadowwould pass and the moon would rise, deep gold, and lie hard and sharpagainst the thick, impending air; the shadow would pass and the starscome out, breaking with an almost audible crackle through the stuff ofthe sky... and only five minutes away the shop-lights were glittering,the Isvostchicks crying to clear the road, the tram-bells clanging, theboys shouting the news. Around and about me marvellous silence....

  In the early autumn of 1916 I met at a dinner-party Nicolai LeontievitchMarkovitch. In the course of a conversation I informed him that I hadbeen for a year with the Ninth Army in Galicia, and he then asked mewhether I had met his wife's uncle Alexei Petrovitch Semyonov, who wasalso with the Ninth Army. It happened that I had known Alexei Petrovitchvery well and the sound of his name brought back to me so vividly eventsand persons with whom we had both been connected that I had difficultyin controlling my sudden emotion. Markovitch invited me to his house. Helived, he told me, with his wife in a flat in the Anglisky Prospect; hissister-in-law and another of his wife's uncles, a brother of AlexeiPetrovitch, also lived with them. I said that I would be very glad tocome.

  It is impossible to describe how deeply, in the days that followed, Istruggled against the attraction that this invitation presented to me. Ihad succeeded during all these months in avoiding any contact with theincidents or characters of the preceding year. I had written no lettersand had received none; I had resolutely avoided meeting any members ofmy old Atriad when they came to the town.

  But now I succumbed. Perhaps something of my old vitality and curiositywas already creeping back into my bones, perhaps time was alreadydimming my memories--at any rate, on an evening early in October I paidmy call. Alexei Petrovitch was not present; he was on the Galicianfront, in Tarnople. I found Markovitch, his wife Vera Michailovna, hissister-in-law Nina Michailovna, his wife's uncle Ivan Petrovitch and ayoung man Boris Nicolaievitch Grogoff. Markovitch himself was a thin,loose, untidy man with pale yellow hair thinning on top, a ragged, palebeard, a nose with a tendency to redden at any sudden insult or unkindword and an expression perpetually anxious.

  Vera Michailovna on the other hand was a fine young woman and it musthave been the first thought of all who met them as to why she hadmarried him. She gave an impression of great strength; her figure talland her bosom full, her dark eyes large and clear. She had black hair, avast quantity of it, piled upon her head. Her face was finely moulded,her lips strong, red, sharply marked. She looked like a woman who hadalready made up her mind upon all things in life and could face themall. Her expression was often stern and almost insolently scornful, butalso she could be tender, and her heart would shine from her eyes. Shemoved slowly and gracefully, and quite without self-consciousness.

  A strange contrast was her sister, Nina Michailovna, a girl still, itseemed, in childhood, pretty, with brown hair, laughing eyes, and atrembling mouth that seemed ever on the edge of laughter. Her body wassoft and plump; she had lovely hands, of which she was obviously veryproud. Vera dressed sternly, often in black, with a soft white collar,almost like a nurse or nun. Nina was always in gay colours; she woreclothes, as it seemed to me, in very bad taste, colours clashing,strange bows and ribbons and lace that had nothing to do with the dressto which they were attached. She was always eating sweets, laughed agreat deal, had a shrill piercing voice, and was never still. IvanPetrovitch, the uncle, was very different from my Semyonov. He wasshort, fat, and dressed with great neatness and taste. He had a shortblack moustache, a head nearly bald, and a round chubby face with smallsmiling eyes. He was a Chinovnik, and held his position in someGovernment office with great pride and solemnity. It was his chief aim,I found, to be considered cosmopolitan, and when he discovered thefeeble quality of my French he insisted in speaking always to me in hisstrange confused English, a language quite of his own, with suddenstartling phrases which he had "snatched" as he expressed it fromShakespeare and the Bible. He was the kindest soul alive, and all heasked was that he should be left alone and that no one should quarrelwith him. He confided to me that he hated quarrels, and that it was aneternal sorrow to him that the Russian people should enjoy so greatlythat pastime. I discovered that he was terrified of his brother, Alexei,and at that I was not surprised. His weakness was that he wasinpenetrably stupid, and it was quite impossible to make him understandanything that was not immediately in line with his ownexperiences--unusual obtuseness in a Russian. He was vain about hisclothes, especially about his shoes, which he had always made in London;he was sentimental and very easily hurt.

  Very different again was the young man Boris Nicolaievitch Grogoff. Norelation of the family, he seemed to spend most of his time in theMarkovitch flat. A handsome young man, strongly built, with a head ofuntidy curly yellow hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones, long hands withwhich he was for ever gesticulating. Grogoff was an internationalistSocialist and expressed his opinions at the top of his voice whenever hecould find an occasion. He would sit for hours staring moodily at thefloor, or glaring fiercely upon the company. Then suddenly he wouldburst out, walking about, flinging up his arms, shouting. I saw at oncethat Markovitch did not like him and that he despised Markovitch. He didnot seem to me a very wise young man, but I liked his energy, hiskindness, sudden generosities, and honesty. I could not see his reasonfor being so much in this company.

  During the autumn of 1916 I spent more and more time with theMarkovitches. I cannot tell you what was exactly the
reason. VeraMichailovna perhaps, although let no one imagine that I fell in lovewith her or ever thought of doing so. No, my time for that was over. ButI felt from the first that she was a fine, understanding creature, thatshe sympathised with me without pitying me, that she would be a good andloyal friend, and that I, on my side could give her comprehension andfidelity. They made me feel at home with them; there had been as yet nohouse in Petrograd whither I could go easily and without ceremony, whichI could leave at any moment that I wished. Soon they did not noticewhether I were there or no; they continued their ordinary lives andNina, to whom I was old, plain, and feeble, treated me with a friendlyindifference that did not hurt as it might have done in England. BorisGrogoff patronised and laughed at me, but would give me anything in theway of help, property, or opinions, did I need it. I was in fact byChristmas time a member of the family. They nicknamed me "Durdles,"after many jokes about my surname and reminiscences of "Edwin Drood" (myRussian name was Ivan Andreievitch). We had merry times in spite of thetroubles and distresses now crowding upon Russia.

  And now I come to the first of the links in my story. It was with thisfamily that Henry Bohun was to lodge.